


Masked, but Not Forgotten

by TessMooreXF



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TessMooreXF/pseuds/TessMooreXF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first Halloween apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masked, but Not Forgotten

It's her first Halloween alone in more than fifteen years. Vaguely, in a gauzy sort of dreamscape, Dana Scully remembers a young Fox Mulder decorating their dull basement office with various ghost and goblin accoutrement. She'd once asked him what his attachment to Halloween was. He'd exclaimed, "It's a Spooky-Man's Christmas, Scully!", the merriment in his eyes infectious and inescapably charming. Her office in the sterile, ocean-blue and white hospital doesn't hold the same appeal. A cheap, plastic pumpkin filled to the brim with Tootsie-Rolls and Reese's peanut butter cups sits on the corner of her desk; at least this way she can say she tried. She doesn't even sneak the candy when no one's looking. Is she trying to cheer herself up, or punish herself by honoring the memory of her time with Mulder?

 _The man's not dead, Dana,_ she admonishes herself. No, the man is far from dead, though she's not sure how truthfully she can describe him as 'alive'. The last she saw him, he'd been buried under a nest of maps and coordinates, happy to ignore most of what she had to say. He would be departing on yet another trip to Europe, tracking UFO hot-spots with his clandestine sources. When she asked him who he was going with, he called her "Mom". She never asked again. The flurry of activity and hope seems a good way for him to pretend that the coming and going of "The 2012 Non-Event" hadn't left him with a look of dazed confusion. That she hadn't seen it, either. After an emotionally distant Christmas and New Year's together, he'd announced that he would be leaving for an expedition to the Alps. 

Scully feels silly standing with the fuzzy, glitter-adorned halo floating above her head. It goes especially well with her institutional scrubs, lab coat, and messy braid, but she doesn't see that her colleagues made much more of an effort. The bucket full of hats and headbands at the conference room entrance is limited, and the party is full cat-ears, devil's horns, and angels. A couple of the nurses went all out for the hospital party, but most of the physicians have come directly from surgery or seeing patients. It's a sedate room of exhausted individuals enjoying mediocre cocktails. She can't say she has anywhere better to be, and her apartment in DC is still a little too heavy on the new-car smell. It isn't quite home, yet, its newly purchased furnishings still stiff and unloved. When will she find the time to break in her sofa without a heavy bag of man-bones to lay on it and stare at the TV for endless hours? 

Rick the Urologist is staring at her from across the room. He's a nice looking man in his early fifties, and he's asked her out more than once. He hasn't asked her out since it finally happened; Maybe he will tonight. Maybe, for once, she'll say yes. He smiles and raises his cocktail to her by way of acknowledgement, and she can't help but find amusement at the identical bobbing angel halo atop his head. She seems to remember he likes telling jokes. 

"Just the angel I was looking for!" Scully's startled when the voice calls out from behind her -- the voice that still manages to make her heart go a little off-kilter. 

Mulder's standing behind her, cleanly shaven and wearing his "special occasion" jeans. They'd argued all day once about the merits of the jeans, Scully positing that there is no such thing as a pair of jeans appropriate for a special occasion. Even now she has to admit, they do work some magic on his backside. 

Scully suddenly feels grungy and awkward. She certainly hadn't expected him. "What are you doing here, Mulder? You don't have a clearance badge." 

"I learned a few tricks over the years, Scully. Besides, no one should be alone on Christmas... and it is, after all, a Spooky-Man's Christmas." His grin is wide, and she wants to slap him. Or kiss him. Or maybe both -- at the same time. "Your present is back at your place." 

"Ok..." Scully walks to place her empty cocktail glass in the return bin by the door. "I guess that means we should go usher in the season." 

Mulder places his hand at her lower back on the way out, his thumb rubbing over her hip. It's something like old-times, but the new times continue to terrorize her.


End file.
